The IBM 2741, a slow but letter-quality printing device and terminal
based on the IBM Selectric typewriter. The golf
ball was a little spherical frob bearing reversed embossed
images of 88 different characters arranged on four parallels of latitude;
one could change the font by swapping in a different golf ball. The print
element spun and jerked alarmingly in action and when in motion was
sometimes described as an infuriated golf
ball. This was the technology that enabled APL to use a
non-EBCDIC, non-ASCII, and in fact completely non-standard character set.
This put it 10 years ahead of its time — where it stayed, firmly
rooted, for the next 20, until character displays gave way to programmable
bit-mapped devices with the flexibility to support other character
sets.